


left cold on a different mattress, without a plan

by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Homeless Britta, darker timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25166968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland
Summary: She starts floating through life because it feels better than running. Starts getting hazy on the details because it’s easy, because she’s Britta’d everything else, even when she tries her hardest not to.And if her name is synonymous with fucking up, why should she bother to do anything but drift aimlessly?A brief glance at a darker timeline for homeless Britta. Set early S6. Fic title lifted from the song "No" by K.Flay.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Britta Perry
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	left cold on a different mattress, without a plan

**Author's Note:**

> I'd initially started this as a happier story for Annie and Britta, but this idea came to me and wouldn't let go. Not sure yet if I'm going to leave this as a one-shot or expand it.

Here's why Britta's passing through life as a homeless transient right now: it leaves expectations subject to tampering. And if she can crack expectations apart like they're plastic Easter egg shells, she can convince herself that living in an increasingly permanent limbo between adolescence and adulthood is fine. That fucking an ever-growing list of faceless dudes is actually fun and not deeply depressing. That she's still young and can live like it, even though her liver's definitely asking for a break from revisiting the bottles of Wild Turkey she thought she'd left behind after her early twenties.

Sometimes the shadows slip in uninvited, like at that Black Moth Super Rainbow gig she'd caught in the Ogden Theater's basement a couple months back. They'd put on a wicked good set, but for the first time Britta could remember, she'd had to stop dancing for some of their set because her knees hurt. And it was the first time she'd ever asked herself, _"How long do you think you can keep jumping on beat on pavement, on hardwood floors? How long can you keep doing this?"_

She spent some of the band's intermission on the hunt for a hit off a joint, fiending for a little high to avoid answering that second question. What she really needed then, and still needs today, is a voice pointing where to go next.

For now, she bobs along with the flow, floats down a lazy river of requests and suggestions of what to drink, what to smoke, what parties to attend, outside of her working hours at the bar. She's avoided trouble there, if only because she needs the cash. Plus she's plenty good at seeking it out elsewhere. Like at the dive bar a couple blocks over from where she works. She gloms onto a guy there on a Wednesday afternoon and he grabs her tits as she leads them to the bathroom.

She knows it's gross, but she's half-hammered, half-flattered, and nearly all comatose. So, Britta reasons, it's better to get a grip on whatever this is than slip even deeper into ennui. Even if letting some rando bone her in a public restroom stretches her feminist sensibility toward sex to the limit and leaves a few dents in it. Though at least this guy has the courtesy to fuck her into an orgasm.

" _This is the last time,"_ she whispers afterwards, then corrects herself. _"The new last time."_

Britta tries not to reflect on how her promises are becoming punchlines, stale-ass jokes that land even less often than the ones she'd so rarely trotted out with the study group. Tries even harder to avoid tallying whether the promises or regrets are piling up faster, because if she does, she'll end up staring at the bottom of a bottle sooner rather than later. Although at least booze gives her a viable excuse for pulling stupid shit. For why, every time a chance to make a bad decision pops up in her life lately, she can't say no.

**

The best lesson Annie's taught herself as a reformed addict is to live her life in the active voice, never passive. Which is mostly why her calendar is perpetually bursting at the seams, why she's taken up jogging on some mornings, why she hunts down every scrap of extra credit she can find. Because if she keeps busy, she can't relax, recline, and backslide right into bad habits. She's running more and more now these days, being sure to keep her mind clear and sweep her life for any potential pitfalls, pruning and purging them as needed before she leaves Greendale for good. As hard as she tries, though, there are some impulses she can't quite curb.

Like rolling over in bed and picking up her phone when Britta texts her after 1 AM, an incoherent mess of fragmented sentences, ending with the question, _"Can I please crash at your place tonight?"_

It scares Annie, just how deep she has to dig in her soul to find a fuck to give about Britta these days, but she answers _"Yes,"_ just the same and Britta texts back that she's called a cab and she's buckled in. Annie wonders how far gone someone has to be for obeying a basic, mandatory traffic law to represent a legitimate step in the right direction.

Britta's halfway sober when she turns up on the doorstep of the apartment (thank God Abed is a pretty sound sleeper) and has the audacity to give Annie a tired smile. It pisses Annie off—she'd expected a contrite Britta and doesn't care, at the moment, how petty that makes her. But Britta's tiny smile reminds Annie of a simpler time, when she'd had yet to outgrow her last remaining bits of naiveté and Britta had seemed cool, attuned to the world outside the little Greendale bubble, street-smart and head-strong. She thinks that Britta is still _somewhere_ to be found, though right now, her skin's tinted gray, her eyes are bloodshot, and her blonde curls are mangy, untamed, probably unwashed.

Her critical eye doesn't go unnoticed, as Britta comments softly, "I'm a mess, I know. I'm sorry."

Annie's gotten good at following the standard "disappointed parent" template with Britta—holding in her anger, only letting it out with small sighs as she gathers up blankets and pillows to turn the couch into a makeshift bed for the night—but something in her finally snaps.

"If you were actually sorry, you wouldn't keep doing this," she hisses.

"What, you think I _want_ this to be my life?" Britta answers aggressively, staring daggers at Annie now. "Are you really suggesting that?"

Her own suggestion that she knows better than Annie—who, you know, actually has a place to live—doesn't go over smoothly.

"I don't know, but it sure fucking seems that way!" Annie screams back, and she hadn't meant to raise her voice, at all, and she's going to feel like shit for waking up Abed and it's been so long since she last lost it that her vocal cords ache a bit. But, perversely, it feels _good_ , knowing that she still cares about Britta enough to get this angry.

" _Please_ stop choosing whatever this lifestyle is, Britta!" she begs. "I don't care how, just…I don't know, fucking divorce it!"

"Divorce it?" Britta asks, looking blankly at Annie, shaking her head because the turn of phrase sounds like something she'd say, in a past life, something she'd get mocked for, relentlessly, by the rest of them and suddenly she's half-laughing, half-crying and it takes all her self-control, or what little of it is left, to not pull Annie into a tight hug. Because she reeks of stale sex and dumpster-quality booze, and she's not trapping Annie in her bullshit. She's not gonna Britta her any more than is strictly necessary to survive. She's proud of everyone in her little weird study group family, but she might respect Annie the most for her sheer ambition, for aiming her arrows as high as she can. For how she's realized everything that's waiting for her won't come any closer and she's gotta reach out more, more, more.

" _Like I never did,"_ Britta realizes sadly, and she's on the precipice of another downward spiral, except Annie's giving her a watery smile and she thinks she hears a giggle, and it buoys her spirit enough to try and answer the brunette's question.

"I would," she murmurs after flopping down on the couch, and Annie follows suit. "Divorce…I guess…" she chuckles at the term again, "whatever the fuck I'm doing. If I could. But I can't stop running towards dumb shit lately. Can't get out of my own way."

Annie doesn't know if she wants to shake Britta or hug her. Doesn't know what to say, anymore. But she knows what it's like to be abandoned (thanks, Mom; nothing like committing yourself to rehab and getting disowned in the same day). So, after she turns out the living room lights and Britta gets herself settled on the couch, she goes over to check on her, makes sure she's covered in blankets and leaves a glass of water and two Advil on the coffee table. Annie hesitates for a second at the threshold of her bedroom because her mind's shrouded in doubts, because none of them are technically family and they're all splintering off anyway. And maybe she's offered Britta too many second chances. But she's never bothered to extend this one in particular.

She creeps back over to the couch.

"Hey," Annie whispers.

Britta rolls over, slowly blinking a touch of sleep out of her eyes, and if Annie doesn't look too closely, she can pretend everything's normal, that it's like Britta's just crashing at her and Abed's place after a party or a late-night project. "What is it, Annie?"

"You…you can stay here for a bit. If you want," she offers.

"Really?" Britta breathes out, eyes wide, and she looks so unguarded, so hopeful, that Annie's heart breaks a little at the fact that they've all collectively ignored Britta's plight, turned her into a punching bag at times, and didn't think it would do anything because, well, it didn't, for so long.

"Yeah. For a few days, at least," Annie nods; she and Abed make joint decisions on all large-scale apartment-related matters, usually, but this is a special case. "We're gonna need to get some ground rules in place," she says, about to launch into more detail, but Britta's nearly passed back out and she could use some sleep, too, so she cuts herself off and instead whispers, "We'll talk more about it tomorrow."

"Okay," Britta nods, and suddenly her left arm's snapped out of the covers to grab Annie's hand. "Thank you, Annie," she murmurs. "Thank you so much."

Annie clumsily pats her hand and nods. "Sure thing. Now get some sleep."

She doesn't mean to sound so cold, so disaffected, but as a former addict, caring about someone in a precarious situation of their own alarms her, to say the least, especially because she and Britta have been through this song and dance enough to have the steps memorized backwards, forwards, and sideways.

" _Except you've never offered to let her stay here for more than a night, before,"_ Annie notes to herself.

" _I'm sure that won't backfire at all,"_ her inner cynic observes wryly. _"You can call Britta crazy, but you might be just as insane."_

Because when it comes to Britta, Annie can't say no.


End file.
